Triangle Trip

Big A, Captain G, and Statusmonger are frequent travelers to Pasadena, CA. Below are our candid reviews of all the places we have dined in Pasadena for the past three months — from mid-December 2008 to early March 2009. We feel that Pasadena is a bit overrated when it comes to dining and shopping. There are many restaurants in Pasadena, but none has stood out.

Captain G is quite disappointed at the choices, especially with Maison Akira which some people tout it as one of the best in the Greater LA area. Arroyo Chop House is by far our favorite. We celebrated Statusmonger’s birthday there. Big A is a nicer rater, but agrees with the rankings below.  He recommends Arroyo and Mi Piace for newcomers to Pasadena.

Below are our 15 restaurants we have dined at and their rankings (best to worst):

1.  Arroyo Chop House – The only restaurant in California that only serves USDA Prime beef and nothing more. Service was excellent. Great wide selection coupled with a wide variety of side dishes. Lobster mash potatoes side is a must!

2.  Ruth’s Chris – A consistent steakhouse, we have been here multiple times. It was the best dineLA 2009 experience we had in California.

3.  Mi Piace – An Italian restaurant and bakery. It has great seafood pasta and excellent selection of desserts to compliment your dinner. It has outside sitting and offers a wonderful experience of Old Town Pasadena.

4.  MaiKobe – A new restaurant on Fairoaks between Colorado and Green Street. It is so new that it didn’t have a review on Yelp yet. Servings were good portions. Despite having “Kobe” as its restaurant name, its Kobe beef was not good. Perhaps we should not have ordered a Kobe roll as Kobe beef should not have been rolled with rice. Dessert was excellent though. They also serve Hibachi style dinners.

5.  Bar Celona – A Spanish tapas joint on Colorado. The stuffed quail is a must. Paellas and mussels are also good options. The sangria was not too good though. Wine selection was a bit limited. Overall the restaurant had good ambiance. Music also went well with the food.

6.  Houston’s – Consistent American style restaurant with good service and atmosphere. It has the best French Dip sandwich and Ribs platter we have ever had… Houston’s even serves sushi now. Wine and beer selections are great.

7.  Roy’s – It’s a Hawaiian fusion restaurant. We were seated in an extension of the restaurant which resulted in poor service. The room was also cold. Food was so-so. We had better meat and fish at Houston’s.

8.  Louise’s – Italian restaurant right across the street from Mi Piace. Menu is a bit less expensive compared to Mi Piace but the food is not too bad. You get what you pay for. Parking is a bit hard to find though.

9.  Cheesecake Factory – Very typical and just like the other Cheesecake chains. The restaurant met expectations. However, it is always crowded so we don’t think it’s worth the wait.

10.  Sushi of Naples – Surpringly good sushi and udon place. We had fresh fish over Super Bowl weekend at Sushi Naples. It is however located a bit out of the way – away from Old Town.

11.  Saigon Noodles – Despite the fact that it looks ghetto outside but the soup was authentic. Pricing was also right. Portion was decent. Can’t complain when you want some authentic Vietnamese at a decent price.

12.  Green Street Tavern – From the outside, this restaurant looked elegant. Service was so so even though it was not crowded on a Tuesday night. We had wine and the tasting menu (tapas like dishes) that evening to try out all the entrees. The only thing worth trying was the short ribs. Wine menu was not good either.

13.  Gyu-Kaku – A Japanese BBQ joint. Service was slow. Beef and other meat were marinated with too much salt which made us drank more Sake… Sake selection was good. Don’t fall into the all you can eat trap. Overall, the price was too high compared to the quality of food we got that evening.

14.  1810 – An Argentinian restaurant located on Colorado – in the heart of Old Town, Pasadena. We thought it was a real Argentinian restaurant but it was more or less a lounge/bar food type restaurant. Food was horrible. We had chewy steak, bad wine and horrible valet service. The valet attendant wanted us to pre-pay for parking because he was leaving his shift. The only thing that kept this restaurant out of the bottom was how bad Maison Akira was back in January.

15.  Maison Akira – A French/Japanese fusion place which was neither Japanese nor French. We’d a prix fixe menu back in February 2009 and it was the worst meal in a decade for Captain G. You can find out the details on his previous post.

I was the first person on the plane and noticed there were quit a few pillows and blankets in overhead bins. I also heard the flight attendants making multiple announcements telling passengers to help themselves to the pillows and blankets. After 3/4 of the plane have boarded and we were running out of overhead space, I saw flight attendants rearranging the bags in the overhead bins. I noticed pillows and blankets were taking up half of one bin. The flight attendant was walking around offering pillows and blankets to passengers and there were no takers.

With all the airlines nickle and diming passengers on the smallest stuff, they failed to see that pillows and blankets is an area they should can cost and may make passengers happier. I am not sure how much of the budget goes to pillows and blankets but I am sure there’s a cost. Airlines have to buy the pillows and blankets then clean them on every flight. I’m sure passengers would give up free blankets and pillows in exchange for a can of soda vs a tiny cup filled with ice.

Pillows and blankets takes up overhead space. Experienced and business travelers will not use pillows or blankets as they’re usually prepared. I saw 10% of the plane with the neck pillows which I am not sure if they work. Other travelers who needs pillows and blankets can easily use their jackets. If you don’t have a jacket because you heading to Hawaii and coming from a warm place like southern California? Well, that’s too bad. You should always travel with a light jacket.

Airlines can get rid of pillows and blankets to save money or use the proceeds to offer better services. Why offer a service to customers when only 10% would value or even use it? If the airline believes the the 10% of passengers would like the pillows and blankets, they can sell it to those passengers to make more money and pass the cost savings to other customers like me who never use it. Perhaps US Scare has got it right for once. USAir began charging for pillows and blankets back in Feburary 2009. I am sure US-Scare’s pillows and blankets annoucement did not get too much slack compared to charging $1 for coffee and $2 for a soda.

I have been getting tons of emails from all airlines about mileage promotions. Most recently I received an email from American telling me a 33% discount if I bought 1,000+ miles. Here’s the link in case some are interested.

Buying AA Miles

If you look at the offer, it’s really not worth it. The asking price for 1,000 is $27.50 — that is $0.275 per mile when the airline industry standard is $0.01 per mile. Furthermore, airlines are applying more fees when you use your miles to redeem for flights.

If you are serious about purchasing miles, ghetto Delta has a better deal. Here’s the link if you’re interested. To create confusion and masking the actual cost, Delta is asking for $59.13 for 2,000 + 2,000 free bonus miles. If you do the math, it’s $0.147 per mile – as 50% savings compared to AA.

Buy Skymiles

United is the most expensive out of the big three airlines. UAL wants $67.25 for 1,000 miles. In addition, UAL also wants to charge you a $35 service fee. I could understand that Delta & American may be higher because points.com is processing the mileage purchase for you but UAL seem to be doing the mileage fulfillment themselves.

Buy UAL miles

Are these airlines serious? Do they think people would actually pay for airline miles when they are depreciating them? I will have a follow up post on what you should do with your miles in a few days.